OST

OST, also known as Simple Token, was conceptualized to serve as a bridge between mainstream consumer applications and the complexities of blockchain technology. The venture was founded by serial internet entrepreneur Jason Goldberg, who also served as the CEO. Goldberg's previous entrepreneurial experience includes founding the e-commerce sites Fab and Hem, as well as the social media app Pepo. The idea for Simple Token emerged from the challenges encountered while attempting to tokenize Pepo, a process that proved to be unexpectedly costly and complex.

The company's core offering was a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that enabled businesses to create their own branded digital tokens without needing to build and maintain their own blockchain infrastructure. This was facilitated by the OpenST protocol, an open-source technology that allowed companies to launch their own scalable and secure token economies. The business model involved companies purchasing Simple Token (OST), an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum mainnet, and staking it to mint their own Branded Tokens (BT) on open, scalable side-chains. This structure was designed to provide businesses with the benefits of a tokenized economy, such as incentivizing user engagement and facilitating micro-transactions, without the hurdles of conducting their own Initial Coin Offering (ICO).

OST provided a comprehensive toolkit for businesses, including APIs, SDKs, wallets, and dashboards, aiming to make the integration of token economies as straightforward as implementing online payment systems like Stripe. The platform targeted mainstream consumer applications and marketplaces that sought to reward users for valuable contributions, such as content, reviews, or data. One of the key goals was to address Ethereum's blockchain congestion by utilizing side-chains to enable high transaction throughput for these branded tokens.

A significant milestone for the company was its ICO in late 2017, which successfully raised approximately $21 million. The public token sale was set to launch on November 14, 2017, with the token price at $0.0889. Following the ICO, the OST token was listed on several major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance. The project also spawned Pepo, a social app where users could reward each other with tokens for creating short videos, demonstrating a real-world application of the OST technology. However, in July 2021, Binance announced it would delist OST, among other tokens.

Keywords: Jason Goldberg, Simple Token, OpenST protocol, blockchain-as-a-service, branded tokens, tokenization, ERC-20, Ethereum side-chains, cryptocurrency, digital currency, ICO, Pepo app, micro-transactions, token economy, crypto community, blockchain toolkit, Nishith Shah, blockchain infrastructure, digital rewards, user incentives